Broncos outplay Evessa, stretch winning streak to four games

Suddenly, the Saitama Broncos are one of the hottest clubs in the 21-team bj-league.

The Broncos rattled off their fourth straight victory on Saturday, beating the host Osaka Evessa 98-83.

Saitama raised its record to 8-27, and during its current streak has doubled its victory total for the entire season under first-year coach Tracy Williams.

John “Helicopter” Humphrey, a star for the now-defunct Tokyo Apache during former bench boss Joe Bryant’s time in charge (2005-09), scored a game-high 38 points for the Broncos. He was 3-for-11 on 3-point shots, but converted 13 of 22 3-pointers and went 3-for-3 at the free-throw line, with five rebounds, three assists, one steal and a block. Teammate Nyika Williams had a big game, finishing with 22 points, 22 rebounds and five assists.

“Tonight we just came out and played hard,” Humphrey told The Japan Times after the game. “We finally got the team together, learning each other and playing for each other. It’s what coach (has) been trying to get us to do. We just want to play hard for 40 minutes, and let the scoreboard take care of itself.”

Takuma Yamashiro and Yuki Kitamuki each had 13 points for Saitama, which out-rebounded the hosts 49-46.

The Broncos led 47-44 at halftime, and put 51 points on the board in the second half to secure the win.
“Thank you, Jesus, for another win; thank God for a good win for the Broncos,” were Broncos coach Tracy Williams’ opening remarks in the post-game news conference. “Good win for our organization. Came in here and got a win over a good Osaka team.

“Our team is growing every day, every game you are seeing us just grow before your eyes, getting better and better, starting to really believe in ourselves, so a good, excellent win for our team. “But we’ve got another game tomorrow, and Osaka’s going to come out and play hard. So we are going to have to come and not only match their effort, we are going to have to play beyond it.

“We definitely got our work cut out for us tomorrow.”
After the game, Osaka coach Bill Cartwright expressed disappointment in his team’s effort.

“Whenever we play teams that challenge us one-on-one to guard so far this season, we have not done well,” Cartwright said. “This team tonight is a scoring team, but what happened is we got caught in their tempo,which is not what we want; we want our tempo. So consequently we gave up (too many) points, which can never happen.

“We still had numerous opportunities offensively to score. I can not count how many layups we missed tonight, but there were a lot.

“Giving up 18 offensive rebounds is not good, either, so simply we are going to have to do a better job defensively and guard Humphrey. He did not hurt us from the 3-point line, he hurt us from the 2-point line and the free-throw line, so we are going to have to be able to guard him, and their center (Williams) probably had a career high against ours so it’s not tricky. We simply have to play better defensively.”

Osaka fell to 10-25 overall, 5-6 since Cartwright, the former NBA big man and Chicago Bulls bench boss, took over as coach in late January.

Shun Watanuki paced the Evessa with 18 points and five assists, Rick Rickert had 13 points and 11 rebounds and Mike Bell and Nathan Walkup both scored 12 points.

Golden Kings 77, B-Corsairs 62

In Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture, Anthony McHenry was the catalyst for Ryukyu in a game featuring the first-place clubs in their respective conferences.

McHenry finished with 12 points, 14 rebounds, three steals and two blocks in an inspiring performance for the reining champions, who improved to 16-3 at home.

Dzaflo Larkai was 7-for-8 from the field in an 18-point effort for the Golden Kings (27-8), Shigeyuki Kinjo had his best all-around game in recent memory (12 points and four steals in 15 minutes), Naoto Kosuge scored 11 and Terrance Woodbury and Narito Namizato each had nine.

“The guys played with a lot of energy and heart, but didn’t make enough plays throughout the game on either end,” Yokohama coach Reggie Geary said after the game. “Kabaya and Thomas really competed well and did their best to carry the load, but giving up 25 offensive rebounds and committing 17 turnovers as a team was too much to overcome.

“Anthony McHenry was the true difference maker tonight, coming up with timely points and rebounds.”

He added: “Overall Okinawa showed a good quality of play and will be another good challenge tomorrow for our ball club.”

Big Bulls 92, Five Arrows 89 (OT)
In Takamatsu, Carlos Dixon scored 40 points in his dramatic return to the lineup after a four-game suspension for “unsportsmanlike conduct” against the Chiba Jets, when he untied a nonshooting player’s shoe lace before a free throw, and Iwate edged the pesky Five Arrows.

Dixon sank 3 of 5 3s, made 11 of 15 2-point shots and drained 9 of 11 free throws in a spirited performance off the bench. Iwate improved to 25-12.

In the paint: The discussion of current bj-league players’ future was briefly bandied about on Saturday afternoon. This reporter asked a well-connected hoop pundit his thoughts on who among the league’s current Japanese players appeared to have future head coaching aspirations.

Money issues: Friday’s notebook reported that the Miyazaki Shining Suns have not given former guard Larriques “Rico” Cunningham his prize money for winning the Slam Dunk Contest at the All-Star Game in January at Ariake Colosseum. A Kyushu-based source, however, said late Friday night that the team hasn’t taken the money from Cunningham.
“In truth, the bj-league has not issued the ¥100,000 prize money to Rico yet. Why they need more than six weeks to accomplish that is another story, I imagine, but as of today, they have not issued the prize money,” the source said. Stay tuned…